Saturday, April 8, 2017

Apologies to a Jewish communist: 'Not all Neo-Nazis...'

The Jewish-American communist Louis Proyect - who has a lot of power on the US Left, and seems to be one of the few Marxist-Leninists to oppose the Assad regime - recently put up a brief post containing Richard Spencer's #StandWithAssad meme:

Proyect wants to tar all of us Neo-Nazis with the same brush, and it's in his political interest to do so: he wants to stir up the US Left against the Assad regime, and one means of doing that is to associate US and European supporters of Assad with fascism, Neo-Nazism, racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and other deplorable, irredeemable things. Like a good many leftists, Proyect relies on a group-shaming strategy in an attempt to keep his fellow leftists - some of whom have strayed towards Assadism - in line.

But we on the Far Right don't all support Assad and Putin. I'm reminded of that classic Green Lantern issue by Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil, in which Green Lantern assaults the evil slumlord Jubal Slade:

Green Lantern is summoned to Oa by his superiors, the Guardians, and made to give an account for himself: 'You have behaved inexcusably! We have monitored your activities! We have observed your emotional attack on your brother Earthling!'. Green Lantern responds with a defence that has been stuck in my head ever since I read the story thirty five years ago: 'That... Filth... Is no brother of mine...!'.

Mr Proyect, I am a Neo-Nazi, and apropos of Richard Spencer, 'That filth is no brother of mine'.